‘Offensive and disgraceful’: Protesters cheer as City of Halifax shrouds Cornwallis statue

Protesters who pledged to remove a statue of Halifax’s controversial founder Saturday say they came away victorious after the monument to Edward Cornwallis was covered. (Darren Calabrese/Canadian Press)

Mayor Mike Savage says veil is a temporary measure, will be removed after demonstration

By Frances Willick, CBC News, July 15, 2017

Municipal crews draped a black cloth over a statue of Edward Cornwallis in a downtown Halifax park Saturday as protesters gathered with a plan to remove the statue.

After a city truck arrived, crews informed the gathering they would shroud the monument as a sign of good faith.

Cheers went up from the crowd as the monument disappeared under its new veil. Some demonstrators chanted and raised their fists in the air as others drummed and sang. Afterward, people joined hands and slowly circled the statue.

CBC News reporters on the scene estimated there were about 150 people at the gathering.

Cornwallis, a governor of Nova Scotia, was a military officer who founded Halifax for the British in 1749. The same year, he issued the so-called scalping proclamation, offering a cash bounty to anyone who killed a Mi’kmaq person.

Veil is temporary, says mayor

Halifax Mayor Mike Savage attended the demonstration.

He said the veil was a temporary measure and that it will be removed sometime after the demonstration, though he did not give details on the time frame.

“We said we’d leave it up for [Saturday’s] ceremony,” he said. “I don’t know that there’s a rush to take it down, but it will come down.”

Within hours of the ceremony, the black cloth was gone. In its place, an orange tarp partially obscured the statue.

‘Most joyous’ day

One of the organizers of the event, Elizabeth Marshall, of Eskasoni First Nation in Cape Breton, N.S., said it was moving to see the support from the crowd and the municipality.

“This had to be one of the most joyous days I’ve experienced in a long, long time,” she said. “I never anticipated we would start a new relationship with the settler peoples because we’ve always been excluded from everything.”

She said it felt like “a rebirth of our people who felt oppressed and who felt they were voiceless. Today they had a voice.”

Organizers had hoped the plan to remove the statue would prompt the city to pledge to do so itself by Natal Day on Aug. 7. But Savage said in a statement earlier this week that a process is already in place to discuss the issue and that the removal of the statue on Saturday could “set back progress.”

Committee to begin work in September

Savage said on Saturday that the committee members, which will include Mi’kmaq people, will likely be in place by September. A timeline for recommendations and decisions will be determined by the committee, he said.

Savage stopped short of saying he wants the statue to come down, but he called it an “obvious impediment” to reconciliation.

“I want to resolve the situation,” he said. “I don’t think the status quo is good.”

‘It brings back pain’

Patrick LeBlanc, an Indigenous man from Digby, N.S., said the statue is a painful reminder of the oppression of First Nations people in Canada.

“This gentleman here represented a genocide for our people,” LeBlanc said. “And to see it every day, it just brings back memories and it also brings back pain.”

LeBlanc said simply covering the statue isn’t enough. He would like to see it replaced with something that will give restitution and healing.

Protester Daniel Arnot said removing the statue shows support for reconciliation with Indigenous people.

“I think some people should open their eyes and listen to people who are just making a humble request that this offensive and disgraceful homage to colonial history is removed,” he said.

Police presence

A small number of people who attended the event appeared to hold dissenting opinions of Cornwallis, as at least one man began shouting at the protesters and another showed up with a U.K. flag.

Halifax Regional Police said Saturday morning that officers would be on the scene to ensure a peaceful demonstration can take place.

It’s unclear how activists planned to take the statue down. It stands on a stone pedestal about two and a half to three metres off the ground.

Site of protests in past

The site was also the scene of an Indigenous protest on Canada Day in which a woman shaved her head and placed her two braids at the foot of the statue. The woman said she wanted her action to bring attention to issues including Canada’s treatment of Indigenous people and the environment.

At that protest, members of the group Proud Boys showed up and told the gathering that they were “disrespecting General Cornwallis.”

There is a lot of resistance and protest these days re public historical statutes, monuments and buildings in Canada that portray and affirm colonization. These rightly offend the experience of Indigenous peoples. Inspired by the cooperation today in Halifax to cover with a tarp the statue of Cornwallis, the racist British military founder of Halifax, for the time being, I have a suggestion. Rather than remove these memorials and therefore the historical memory of these figures who played a large role in shaping the country we live in today, why not simply add prominent plaques or informational boards that amend, add to or recount the real historical record? Create a dialogue about, rather than a removal of history. An opportunity to educate. Removal of history never serves a society well. I would recommend the same to those places in eastern Europe and Russia where commemorations of the Soviet Union remain. We have to be mature enough to embrace the whole history.